The importance of therapeutic targets in PPT
ISTFP Vice President Dr. Eve Caligor presented at the Milan Supervisors Congress on October 6, 2023 a joint lecture with Dr. Richard Hersh (pioneer of Applied PFT) on the importance of therapeutic targets in PFT.
He went further than ever because he reminded us of the importance for therapists to have the objectives (that the patient himself set) present even in the middle and advanced phases of the treatment and that we do not feel obliged to accept as the theme of the session that which the patient starts with at the beginning of his session in free association, but that we have the freedom to stop the associative course of a patient if we think that there is a very important theme that is not appearing in his speech because it has been dissociated from the content of his communications but is of great importance at that moment.
This means in practice that the TFP therapist must direct the cure.
The patient must always start his or her sessions and do so freely with whatever he or she wants, but if the patient is leaving out of his or her discourse something dangerous, relevant or even the daily pursuit of the therapeutic goals he or she has set for himself or herself, it is up to the TFP therapist to stop his or her discourse and ask, gently but actively, about these issues that he or she is ignoring.
In our courses, we will expand on how to do this technique without making the patient feel unduly bad.
